


Vacuity

by obfuscatress



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Aphasia, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-16
Updated: 2015-08-16
Packaged: 2018-04-15 00:25:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 779
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4585977
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/obfuscatress/pseuds/obfuscatress
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>We fell into stock still darkness.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Vacuity

**Author's Note:**

  * A translation of [Tyhjiö](https://archiveofourown.org/works/4497885) by [obfuscatress](https://archiveofourown.org/users/obfuscatress/pseuds/obfuscatress). 



I play the violin by the window with closed eyes and listen to the rustling of you reading the paper. The way your fingers twitch and the page cracks as clear as my own thoughts. You are one of those people who lick their fingers to turn the page, and I would tell you about traces of chemicals brushed onto your tongue, but I can only speak in music, and you don’t understand a single note.

Sometimes I hear you frustration through the silence, when my eyes twinkle brighter than the stars with unspoken words. We both know I am lightyears ahead, and yet stuck in a lapse of conversation. I know, who killed Mrs Arbroath, but the names and the motives have become stuck on the tip of my tongue. Strangely enough it seems to bother you more than me.

Perhaps you have found yourself in stock still darkness, the vacuum of my silence, where your words aren’t heard no matter how loudly you yell. If I could, I would ask you: “Isn’t it frustrating, John?” I shout at you sometimes in the confines of my mind palace to no avail, even with your eyes on me like I’m the only thing to be beheld in the universe.

“Does it upset you at all anymore? Outside of the crime scenes that is,” you ask one night. I shrug nonchalantly and scream at you in my own head. _Hear me, John._

At night, staring at a roof that is your bedroom floor, I wonder if I still talk in your dreams, or have I already gone mute there too? I remember the days, when you clattered down the stairs in the middle of the night with irritation written all over your face, because I made too much noise for you to sleep in peace. Now we both lie sleepless in shared quietude. Do you ever watch the stars from your bed, when you can’t fall asleep, John? Can you see my mind reflected there, travelling through galaxies in a single thought. If only I could tell you how often you have been the catalyst of those bright flashes of clarity. If only I could-

I spend the morning dozing on the couch, solving publicly proclaimed ‘mysteries’ approaches by incompetent journalists playing detectives. “Idiots,” I grumble, but don’t because I can’t. The crossword puzzle mocks me with its gaping emptiness one day after another. _Aphasia, Sherlock. You’ve lost your life to aphasia_ , I whispers in Irene Adler’s jeering voice. I scribble the word ‘Moriarty’ in haggard capital letters and burn the page in the kitchen sink. You might ask about the smell, when you get back, or you might not. I can’t read you anymore, John.

In my dreams though, you are are the same old John, who’s laughing hysterically with his head tossed back against the wall in the hall and you’ve forgotten all about your leg. We run panting through the streets of London cuffed to one another and, despite having forgotten every word I’ve ever learnt, I still speak the unspoken language between us. You take me by the hand, warm skin pressing against mine as the handcuffs continue to chafe our blleding wrists.

I wake, still on the couch, to the sound of the front door of 221 Baker Street slamming shut on a wintry afternoon. You trundle up the stairs with a heavy bag of shopping dangling from each of your hands, though you’ve forgotten the milk once again. You’ve become so forgetful and soon enough you’ll realise you’ve started to limp again. You’ll have to, after all, with my inability to point it out since I’ve gone mute against my will.

You set the bags down on the kitchen floor and let out a long suffering sigh. In out silence, the sound is obscenely loud. Like the roar of thunder in the dead of night. I turn to look at you and my robe slips over my hip and down my back. When did we lose each other like this? You, a tense and traumatised soldier on the verge of a panic attack in the middle of our kitchen. Me, a grumpy sociopath imprisoned in my own mind palace.

“John,” I croak. Your name is such comfortingly familiar sound to my hoarse voice, and yet the most foreign of words in my catatonic mind. For the first time in months, you look at me with hope shimmering in your eyes depite the dark bags framing them. My tongue lies in my jaw with all the weight of the world holding it down and my words feverishly cling to a pleading gaze.

“ _John._ ” Hear me.


End file.
